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Friday, 14 January 2011

Poems of Contradictions

Oh my God. It's Friday once again. And I still have not thought of what to post. I must post something. I must. I must. What do I say? What do I blog about? Arrrrrggghhh. Nothing.

*Light Bulb Moment*

OK. I thought of something to tell you.

Did I tell you that my husband loves Geoffrey Chaucer? Yes. The Father of English Literature. Husband tirelessly coaxes me into reading his books. In old English. But you see, I have a problem reading old English. I tried. So hard. But, for the life of me, I don't get it. My husband insists, I must read all of Chaucer's books. Read I must - to master the English language. So, from time to time, I pretend that I am reading Canterbury Tales.

To state the obvious, my other half loves poetry. What is really amusing is that he recites silly poems, most of the time in the car, and it doesn't fail to crack me up! Now, a word of caution, when I say silly, I really do mean SILLY. Sorry, he does forget Chaucer when he does this. The poems I am going to share with you are full of contradictions. What amazes me is that, after so many years, he can still remember these poems from his childhood word-for-word. He doesn't know where they came from but reckons they may have been passed from generation to generation. Some of you may have heard them somewhere.

Here goes:

Poem Number 1

It was four o'clock in the workhouse
The snow was falling fast
A barefooted man with shoes on
Stood sitting on the grass
A lady, she gave him an apple
He ate it and gave it her back.

He told her he was in the cinema last Saturday
And he had a front seat at the back.

Poem Number 2

One fine day
In the middle of the night
Two dead men
Got up to fight
They faced themselves
Back to back
Then drew their swords
And shot each other

Okay, don't shoot me *giggling*. I just thought it would be fun to share them with you. Isn't it nice to be reminded of those childhood memories - how it was fun to not have a care in the world. Most of all, to not think of grammatical rules and editing your prose, ha!

Do you remember a song or a poem that you loved when you were a child?

8 comments:

Great poems! I can't imagine what it's like to have a husband who's a Chaucer fan. I find him a bit oblique with all the olde English. This turned into a great post. Something always comes up, doesn't it?

BTW the Publication Party has started on my blog. I'd love it if you could come by and read what authors have to say about getting published. Perhaps you could leave a comment about your aspirations. There are prizes each week. Please come by. The champagne's free!

I missed 3 of your posts? 3?! How can this be? I've checked Facebook and Blogger. I'm sorry!

These poems are great. They remind me of Shel Silverstein's style. I used to read his poems over and over. But didn't memorize them because I can't recite a single one. Though I do recall a Terrible Theresa who took a pancake out of the middle of a giant stack of pancakes.

this is my fav poem and it actually goes like thisone fine day in the middle of the nighttwo dead boys got up to fightback to back they faced each otherdrew their swords and shot each otherThe deaf policeman who heard the noiseran and shot the two dead boysif you dont believe this lie is trueask the blind man he saw it too!!

WELCOME!

Hello! It's nice to have you here! In case you are wondering, my blog title was inspired by a childhood memory - I used to talk to myself in the mirror when I was a little girl. I had imaginary friends, too. I even talked to geckos and count their 'tsk.tsk.tsk' and convert them into syllables to form words. Now, not only do I talk to myself...I write all the 'talking' too!